Thank You for Not Dying
by Fyre Melody
Summary: When the proof Scully so often demands finally appears, Mulder is faced with a terrible decision that could very well mark the end of his partner’s life.


**Title**: Thank You for Not Dying

**Author**: Fyre Melody

**Rating**: T

**Genre**: Drama (with just an undercurrent of Romance)

**Feedback**: Love it

**Spoilers**: None specifically, unless you knew nothing about the fandom...

**Summary**: When the proof Scully so often demands finally appears, Mulder is faced with a terrible decision that could very well mark the end of his partner's life.

Thank You for Not Dying

Hazel eyes, sharpened like steel or cut glass, stared painfully down the barrel of a Smith and Wesson, a weapon he had used for years, trusted, and now hated more then anything. The target, desperate blue eyes pleading with him, sorrowful, begging him to put the gun down, was no more than three feet away -- he could not, in any case, miss the bull's-eye between her eyes. That voice, soft, gentle, pleaded with him, appealing both to his logic and his affection for her, filling his mind and driving him to the brink of madness. He teetered at the edge for a moment, just once, before cold resolve hardened those eyes once more, and his heart seemed to stop beating within his chest. "Oh Scully," a sob ripped from his chest and he shut his eyes, unable to catch those last moments before he pulled the trigger. "I am so sorry."

There was a crack, like the breaking of a memory.

An angry scent, like fire and brimstone, scalded his nose and he twitched, just once.

Soft groan... hers?

Then there was silence, and the darkness stretched on into eternity.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Proof.

Undeniable, irrefutable, unequivocal, perfectly explicable proof.

For years that had been her demand, the reason for throwing every claim, every theory, every thought that crossed his mind back into his face for further examination and careful rationalization. No, everything they had seen in their partnership -- every strange craft in the sky, every mysterious death, her own abduction, the sickness -- it was never enough, not without her precious, tangible proof. Everything they had encountered had been able to be explained, in her mind, passed off as less than it was through logic or science, things that she, as a religious woman, should have scoffed at. But her mind refused to embrace such things that could not be seen or touched, such things that she could not find a comfort in explaining. Not without proof.

The truth was out there, but Special Agent Dana Scully had trouble finding it.

Proof finally fell into her life, much at the same time that Death came knocking on her door.

He was kneeling in gravel, on leg pressed into the back of the struggling suspect while the other braced himself against the uneven footing, and twisting his body to counterweight the violent heaves to escape. The cuffs in his hand, he smiled up at his partner. "I got this. Clean the warehouse?" The ultimate expression of their relationship, he offered _her_ the chance to run in, gun drawn, and to leave him outside, praying for her safety and cursing her for leaving him. She smiled, gratefully, and had indeed dome that -- run in, gun drawn. He heard the door kicked down, the cursory 'FBI! Is anyone here?' Standard procedure, all of it, and nothing to be concerned with -- if he had thought anyone was inside, he never would have let her go alone. She would shoot him -- again -- if she ever found out.

Then he heard the first noise out of routine: Scully's voice calling out through the silence, "Freeze! FBI!" His heart skipped a beat. A crash. His breath stopped coming, and he swore that something inside of him -- something important -- snapped. By the time the first gunshot sounded, he was already sprinting for the building.

Careful steps, he thought, slowing his frenzied run to a brisk walk, a careful pace with watchful eyes and gun leading. She's in there, and she's not alone. Careful steps, careful steps... he froze once he entered the main room. It was a scene from some macabre farce, this standoff: two petite redheads, identical stares of blue eyes sweeping identical black suits and identical guns pointed at the other, standing perhaps five feet apart, with identical expressions of shock and resolve on their faces. Two Scullys. Oh god, he groaned, slowly moving his weapon from one to the other, indecisive and unwilling to make any assumptions, what am I going to do with this one? "Ummm... Scullys," he began, earning himself now two stares and raised eyebrows. "Care to explain what the hell is going on here?"

"Well Mulder," that was the Scully on the right.

"There seems to be two of me," finished the one on the left.

"I can see that." He kept it light, not wanting to anger anyone into firing the pistols that each had aimed and stalling for time until he could figure out what the hell was going on. "You know, this completely proves my Doppelganger theory. That everyone in the world has a twin." He grinned, but it was more wane than it would have been -- which one was his Scully, and which one was the brutal killer they were chasing? A brutal killer who seemed able to waltz into his victim's houses without anyone giving him a second glance, almost as though he belonged. No neighbors had seen anyone beyond family members, no victim had screamed or fought back, and every witness repeated the same story of a different person: I only saw the father, the mother, the uncle. Impossible, unless the killer was-

"A shape shifter," Right Scully finished his thought, playing off his brainstorm as she always did. "She's a shape shifter. When I came in he turned, saw me, and then just... became me." She flicked her glance back onto the left-hand Scully. "This is decidedly creepy."

Left Scully glared and slid a finger down to the trigger. "When _I_ came in. _You_ shifted."

Oh bother, he thought. I can see we'll be doing this the hard way then. His own gun focused on the Left Scully he reached into the ankle holster, evening the playing field with one gun on each Scully. "Now," he tried to sound more sure of himself than he really was, but he knew the real Scully would not be convinced. "You're both going to drop your weapons and step away from them, and then we're going to sort this out."

"Mulder," identical voices assaulted him from either side, and his vision swam alarmingly. This is not happening... he closed his eyes and begged for the scenario to vanish, but it was still laid before him once his eyes reopened, only this time the scenario had placed their guns on the floor and taken a large step away from them.

"I have no idea what is going on here-" he was quickly cut off by the warring twins.

"She's pretending to be me. _Shoot her!_"

"There are _two of me! Shoot her!_"

He was quickly losing patience, and he knew that every minute spent in this situation was another minute of putting the real Scully in danger, and another minute of his sanity slowly slipping away. "Shush," he tried, wearily shutting his eyes and rubbing his temples to rid himself of the headache forming there, behind his eyes and beating against his skull like a caged animal. He knew what he had to do, it was simple, but it was not a task he was looking forward to in any way, especially not with this headache threatening to overwhelm him -- the slightest misjudgment and the _real_ Scully could end up dead. This would have been difficult enough with a clear head, but with this endless pounding, pounding, pounding... A final shake of his head and he was as mentally prepared as he ever would be, shaking out the fear and the concern and becoming, once more, stoic Special Agent Mulder. "Okay," he faced the two Scullys and replaced one gun in the ankle holster. "All we need to do is figure out which of you is the _real_ Scully."

A cacophony of voices threatened to reawaken his headache, but he quickly silenced them with a stern glare.

"Yes, I _know_. 'I'm the real Scully.' If I can't figure this out, find some unequivocal, undeniable proof of your... reality, I'm knocking the both of you unconscious and taking you both into federal custody. Got it?" One Scully, the one on the left, met his proposal with a sullen glare, but the one on the right nodded.

"Sounds fair enough. But if you _do_ knock us unconscious, start with her." The chorus started again, and he waved his arms for order.

"Rule number one: there will be no abuse of the other Scully!" That earned a grin from both, and Mulder was able to relax, just a bit. Scully was the only person to ever truly know him, so if anyone could prove themselves to him, it would be her.

Or so he thought.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

A new case, this one without a doubt an X-File.

One week before the arrest at the warehouse, and a week before Scully inadvertently became a clone, there had been a knock on the basement door, something that rarely happened. Mulder opened the door warily, maybe expecting Phoebe Green again, but instead it had been Skinner, looking graver than he normally did. "Agent Mulder." The Assistant Director's voice sounded tired, so tired, and there were lines in his face that hadn't been there just a few days before. He looked older, somehow, and sick. "May I come in?" Only then did Mulder realize that he was standing in the open door, blocking it like some vertical guard dog in Armani.

"Sorry," he stepped to the side, gesturing for his boss to sit down -- he looked as though he might collapse if he had to stand any longer. Skinner gratefully fell into the chair, not even bothering to look around the crowded room, the posters of aliens or the small bits of eccentric conspiracy theories that littered the room like coffee cups. He did, however, nod a greeting to Scully, who had come to his side in worry.

"Are you alright, sir?" She was in immediate doctor mode, one hand at his wrist to check his pulse and the other fluttering over his forehead, checking for a fever. He shrugged her off.

"I have a case for you both..." he tossed a thick file onto the desk. "Local one, too. Sixteen murders in the D.C. area, and no suspect. Well... not exactly." He flipped open to the first victim, Lee Riley, aged 24, suspect, older brother. Second victim, Maria Sanchez, aged 13, suspect, mother. Sixteen different murders with sixteen different suspects -- all of whom had bulletproof alibis confirmed by at least three others -- all with the same exact scene: death by strangulation, with the victim found suspended upside down above the fireplace. The entire case seemed the work of a serial killer... although sixteen different serial killers with the same MO.

"Could it possibly be the same person?" Scully flipped through each file, trying to find some common theme beyond the cause of death and the layout of the scene. There was none.

Mulder, not even bothering to glance at the files, continued her train of thought, both oblivious to Skinner's curious presence. "Only if that one person was able to control sixteen different people."

"And convince them to commit murder."

Silence descended as the two gazes locked, that eerie, silent communication of theirs immediately leaping to the same conclusion.

Modell?

Couldn't be.

We shot him-

Seems the same.

Another person with the 'pushing' ability?

I hope not.

Could Modell have-

I'll make the call.

Mulder reached for the phone at the exact moment the Scully reached for the files again, working together as a seamless team, like always. Skinner looked on in interest. He had often worried that the relationship between his two X-Files agents bordered on the inappropriate, especially with them spending, literally, nearly every waking moment together, always traveling together, even going as far as to co-habituating the other's apartment, upon occasion. But now, seeing them work together in their 'natural habitat,' he mainly felt... proud. These two agents, so different in so many ways, who by all logic should have requested transfers years ago, had formed a team so strong that it seemed to transcend the physical realm.

"Agents," they looked up, startled by this intrusion on their private workings, and Skinner realized with an amused grin that they had forgotten his presence. Feeling guilty for reasons he didn't even understand, he rose and headed for the door to let himself out. "Let's find this bastard before we get a seventeenth, got it?" They nodded in respectful agreement, and had moved back into their own world before the door was even shut.

Six days later, barely three hours before entering the warehouse, Scully called over to her partner, "Mulder!" He moved behind her to glance at the map, memorizing each dot that was a suspect, and the bird's eye view of the city. The dots were, more or less, centered around the warehouse district of Canal Street NW.

"Let's go."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

An hour or so later brought numerous questions with identical results -- whoever this shifter was, they had done their homework quite thoroughly, both on his life as well as Scully's. Questions of siblings and parents and childhood events had led nowhere, as had the inquiries into cases or professional history. Some questions, the more personal questions concerning Scully, may have cleared this up or not, but even he was unsure of some of the answers himself. And that headache that had been nagging in the back of his mind had now swarmed, almost to the point of taking over. "Mulder," Left Scully began with an exasperated sigh he had heard many times these past six years, "This is getting us nowhere. Just knock us both out."

"Sounds logical." God, did it sound logical; just the sort of thing Scully would suggest in the situation. Without his notice, even without him wanting it to, the gun swept over a bit towards the right Scully. She didn't flinch, understanding. Did they both have to be so damn Scully-like? This was impossible! He passed a hand over his eyes, rubbing them in exhaustion and pain, before sweeping it back through his hair. He needed to think... he just needed to think...

"Fox."

A shudder went through him at the sound of that voice, _her_ voice, calling him by his proper given name. She never did that, not unless some great tragedy had just occurred or she really and truly needed his attention. His eyes opened and he peeked a glance at the right Scully, the one who had spoken. Blue eyes met his, soothing his headache, and suddenly he _knew_. This shape shifter, whatever it was, had made one fatal error in its study of the agents. Going only by record, it would have no way of knowing the inner workings of their minds, the way they communicated beyond human comprehension. He turned to face the left Scully. "What's my greatest fear?" It was in his personal file: Fox William Mulder, phobia of-

"Fire."

Silence.

There it was, his proof.

He sighted down the barrel, said a quick prayer that his gut instinct wasn't wrong, and pulled the trigger.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The drive back to the J. Edgar Hoover building was interesting, to say the least. Skinner drove, unwilling to trust Mulder behind the wheel of a car, in his current state of shock, and behind them drove quite the caravan: numerous SWAT vehicles, the police van, and the coroner's wagon. It had been a perfect shot. "I can't believe it," his voice was soft, weak, and that damned headache was really making him want nothing more than to sleep. Skinner glanced through the review mirror to the agent stretched across his backseat, raising an eyebrow in a very Scully-like question. "I just shot Scully."

"Guess we're even," the voice spoke from his shoulder, where Scully lifted a weary head to meet her partner's gaze. He smiled, again weakly, and raised a hand to stroke her hair, also drawing her head back to rest against him. She complied happily, burrowing her face against his chest before turning, meeting his gaze again. "So, how'd you know it was me?"

The hand in her hair stilled, and for a moment she was afraid that she had made a mistake in asking. "Well, you caught my attention by calling me 'Fox.' I could tell it was really you."

She sat up, confused. "But I _never_ call you 'Fox.'"

"I know," he grinned, and suddenly she remembered the few times that she had used his given name. "So those few cases are quite memorable."

"Oh."

He stretched his legs out as far as they would go, but his frame was too long ad lanky to be comfortable in the back of the Lincoln. One foot reached to the opposite side, but the other was pressed against the front seat, bending the knee at an awkward angle. "But the final question was what truly convinced me."

She was glad when the hand resumed its light caress of her hair and back. "You are afraid of fire."

"Yes," he voice was decidedly softer, and she knew he was speaking only for her now. "But it's not my greatest fear."

"I know. You're greatest fear is-"

"Losing you."

She had known, of course, it was her greatest fear as well. But hearing him say it like that, in that voice, so close to her ear... she snuggled into his embrace. They were silent for the duration of the drive, resting, reflecting, until Scully finally spoke again, taking Mulder's free hand in hers. "Thank you for saving me."

His fingers interlaced with hers, squeezing affectionately. "Thank you for not dying."


End file.
